Chapter Text
“And, kid, I’m sorry to say this but I don’t think you can be a hero without a quirk.”
Izuku breathed in sharply, and he felt something crawl inside him, skittering around inside his chest. It was all too easy to tune out the rest of All Might’s words, and Izuku barely even noticed when the hero left.
He couldn’t be a hero. Of course he couldn’t. It had been hammered into him since he was a kid that he couldn’t be a hero, but somehow it was only now that it was really sinking in. Kacchan was right, all the bullies he’d had were right- he was quirkless, he could never become a hero.
Izuku shivered. He was cold down to his bones, and the long-sleeved shirt of his uniform wasn’t helping. He stood up and, trembling, made the trip down to the street below. One part of his mind screamed to stay there, to get hypothermia, that no one would care if a quirkless kid never made it back home from school, but that screaming was drowned out by the urge to get off that damn roof.
He was sure that his mom would care if he never made it back. Right? She had always been caring, if a little distant. Izuku had noticed it before- that she had talked to him less, had been less worried about him, less.. motherly when she had found out he was quirkless. She had apologized to him, sobbing, when he had asked if he could be a hero the day he found out he was quirkless, and ever since she had never quite loved him the same.
He still loved her, though. Had to. She must’ve been the only person that had cared for him since he was revealed to be quirkless.
Izuku stepped out onto the concrete, exiting the building. He was sorry for his mom, honestly, that she had to deal with taking care of him. That she had to live with him, living in her apartment, bothering her until he moved out, or until he-
Until he died. Izuku hummed, and opened the map function on his phone. He knew plenty of places he could, he just had to pick one and get there.
He was still deciding when an explosion near deafened him. His head jerked to face it, and he sprinted across the street to where a crowd was gathered. At the center there was a slime monster- the slime monster he had been trapped inside, and at its’ center was someone struggling in a futile attempt to free themself.
Izuku watched as the person struggled, clawing at the slime covering their face, and blasted a familiar explosion out of their palm.
It was Kacchan. Izuku wanted to run over to him, claw at the slime, free him as Kacchan surely wouldn’t free him. Izuku wanted to prove that he could be a hero. Prove that Kacchan was wrong by saving the bully himself.
And yet..
Izuku breathed in, deeply, and sighed. It sounded like he was submerged underwater, felt like he was too. He could barely hear the screams and yells and occasional explosions over the rushing in his ears, could barely feel smoke and heat over another trickle of cold making its way down its spine, joining the rest in making him feel lightheaded, numbed.
Cupping a hand over his mouth, as if he were shocked, or trying to not smell the smoke that suffused the air, he had to fight a smile. It was exactly what Kacchan deserved. Izuku turned on his heel and pulled out his phone again. He knew precisely where he would jump.
Izuku knew that he was smiling. Logically, he knew that. But as he climbed up the fire escape, he couldn’t quite figure out why. He didn’t quite feel happy. He was glad that he wouldn’t exist in a few minutes, no more existing than being a crumpled smear on the rough concrete of a fenced off alley, but that didn’t quite explain why he was smiling. if anything, he just felt distant, kind of tired. Dizzy, even.
He barked out a laugh, and shoved the side of the fire escape, barely noticing when a bar of metal snapped and jutted out from the side of the fire escape. Izuku kept climbing.
Looking out from the very top of the rusted fire escape, Izuku considered what would happen when he hit the ground. Would he die instantly? Would he suffer? From that height it would probably be instant, Izuku thought. He didn’t know how long it would be until his body was found, but Izuku figured it would take a while. He picked an alley between an old house with an eviction notice from several years ago nailed to the front, and a run down apartment with fully boarded up windows peering into the alley. He had hidden from bullies here before, when they would chase after him after school ended. Kacchan never found him here, and for that Izuku was grateful. It probably meant that he wouldn’t be found for at least a week. Several, maybe. Perhaps he would rot here for even longer. Days turning into months or years with rats and crows picking at what was left of the flesh on his bones until eventually even they would be reduced to dust. Izuku tapped at the railing and took off his backpack, setting it next to him at the top level of the fire escape.
He put a leg over the railing, then another, and paused, sitting on the railing and looking down into the alley. Izuku smiled, and pushed himself off.
There was a moment of freefall before-
His leg was speared through a piece of rusted metal sticking out of the fire escape, and his body jerked to a stop, dangling head-down fifty feet off the ground. Izuku yelped, flailing with every limb but the one that had been impaled. Fuck. Izuku hadn’t fucking signed up for this . He reached for his leg, grabbing the piece of metal that was stuck through it, just above and next to his knee. He gasped, clawing at it. He had signed up for hitting the concrete and bam, gone. He hadn’t-
The bar snapped, still inside his leg, and he started falling again. Izuku twisted, and stared straight down at the ground, plummeting head-first towards the ground, still holding his leg with both hands for a second, two, and he shut his eyes right before he impacted.
Izuku gasped in a wheezing breath. He was sure that his ribs had punctured his lungs, as he coughed and spattered blood onto the pavement, and yet that was the least of his issues. His nose was definitely broken, and it felt like he had the worst type of carpet burn on his forehead, nose, and right cheek. How was he not dead? His face felt mostly intact in regards to bones, with the exception of his nose and jaw, and that was certainly not how it should have been. His skull should’ve been shattered, with that fall!
He had always been afraid of heights at least somewhat, and feeling the pounding of his head and the burning, stabbing sensation in his lungs, and the way his entire body just felt- well, broken, he could finally fully understand why. Well, he had always known why, somewhat, but he finally understood why he should’ve absolutely been even more afraid of heights. He gagged, heaving, as even the simple act of breathing spattered more blood onto the pavement. Blood was flowing from his nose, from his face, from his leg, and he felt like he had bones sticking out from his skin somewhere, even if he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where. His head was throbbing unlike any other headache he had ever experienced, a pinpoint right between his eyes. He would be surprised if his fingers could even twitch, at this point.
He both regretted and was deeply glad of the fact that he had picked a place where he wouldn’t be found for a while to jump. The height should’ve killed him instantly, to say nothing of him hitting the ground skull-first, but it seemed that his streak of bad luck even applied to his death. He choked, spattering more blood onto the concrete. He was drenched in the stuff. His eyes were glued shut, the only thing he could smell or taste was metallic blood. How long did it even take to bleed out? And if his skull should’ve broken on impact, how on earth didn’t it? How could he still think? At the very least he definitely should have a concussion. Did he? He didn’t think he did. Tackling someone could knock them out if they hit the ground the right way. How did falling from a probable fifty feet headfirst not knock him out? He slid his tongue along the inside of his mouth, and spat out some teeth.
He recalled the numbness scattered with terror that he felt when he was impaled, when he plummeted towards the floor of the alley. Why else would he shut his eyes the moment before he hit? He would’ve been shaking, trembling like he was frozen in ice, if he could move. He would’ve curled up in a ball, hugged himself for a little bit of comfort, if he could move.
But he couldn’t, and he could only lay there, face down on the floor of a grimy alley, as he bled out. He wondered just how long it would take. How long he would have to lay there and think before he would succumb, once more, to the darkness of unconsciousness, how long it would take before his mind, his being, was blown out like a candle in a hurricane.
He hoped it was soon.
Izuku regained consciousness slowly, like waking up after a long midday nap. He groaned, and rubbed his cheek against the sheet. It was weirdly hard, and bumpy, like someone had replaced his mattress with a gravel pit. His arms twitched, and he propped himself up on them. It was strangely hard, though, and he had to struggle for a second before he peeled off the ground, like he had been stuck to it with glue. He rubbed his eyes, feeling the stickiness of clotted, nearly dried, blood, and imprints left in it from the- pavement?
His eyes shot open, and his arms gave out from under him, soaked with near-dried blood.
“Oh.. Oh god..” Izuku mumbled, eyes stuck to his hands and flickering to the matted hair stuck to his face and limiting his field of vision. He dry heaved, bent over, and started scratching the blood off his arms. They were weirdly painless. He was weirdly painless. He stood up after peeling his legs off the pavement, and stumbled to the ground after dizziness hit him like a bat to the face. It made sense, with the amount of blood he’d lost.
What on earth had happened? Not even a few moments ago his body was completely broken, and now he could stand, leaning on a wall, with no pain at all, other than a slight itch, and a pounding headache. Why was he so miraculously recovered?
Was it a quirk? It must have been, he didn’t feel like he had hit the concrete from fifty feet up. It would’ve been more, even, if he hadn’t been-
He slid his hands down to his knee, unwilling to look at it.
The metal was still lodged in his leg. How had he not felt it earlier? His leg gave out from under him, and he collapsed onto the concrete. Izuku looked down at it, and slid a finger right on the seam between his flesh and the metal. It felt healed, but the metal was still lodged in there. Firmly, too, he noticed as he wrapped his hands around one end and tried to yank it out. Was there other stuff in him?
Izuku looked, closely, at his arms and legs- any exposed part of his body that he could see. He couldn’t see that well in the dim lighting, when he was unconscious the day must have passed by, but the sunset lit his body enough that he could see the gravel stuck in his arms, legs, and as he ran his hands over his face he was horrified to realize that there was some even stuck in his face .
Fuck. Fuck- he had to get it out, he had to-
Izuku stumbled to his feet, and looked up at the fire escape. Were there people in that building? What about the abandoned one next to it? Izuku really, really didn’t want to pull gravel out of his flesh in an alley.
Looking at the worn-down building, he saw that the window into it, from where he was in the alley, was thankfully a first floor one. He looked over to the fire escape again, and started climbing, being wary of how he bent his leg on the way up.
When he reached the top, Izuku opened his backpack. Everything was still there, from his waterlogged hero analysis notebook, to his textbooks, laptop, and phone. Thank god. He slung the backpack over a shoulder, and descended the fire escape.
Once again on the ground of the alley, he took a textbook out of his bag. It was heavy, and the subject was one he didn’t care for much, and so it didn’t really matter to Izuku if it broke when he threw it through the window.
The window shattered on impact, scattering glass all over the inside of the building and all over the alley. Izuku climbed in, wary of the glass, and set his bag down inside. Did the power work? He flicked a switch once, twice, and the answer was a resounding no. Made sense. The power probably hadn’t been paid since the resident was evicted, and the wires were probably broken anyways.
Did the water work? Izuku stumbled his way into a bathroom and turned on the faucet into the sink. It took a moment, but the faucet eventually sprayed too-cold water into the sink, and Izuku’s hand. The water heater was probably broken, Izuku mused as he scrubbed blood off his hands.
After his hands were clean, Izuku breathed in and held it. Now for getting out the gravel. He gripped a rock that had speared through his palm, and ripped it out with a wince. It started gushing out blood, as Izuku had expected but not planned for, and he stood there, staring dazed as his headache suddenly spiked. His eyes fluttered shut as the pinprick between his eyes increased, and when it went away, his eyes opened again.
Wait.
His hand was intact. Besides the blood, which Izuku wiped off in disbelief, it was completely healed. There was barely a scar.
Wait, so- this was him ? This was-
Izuku had a quirk. He had a regeneration quirk that came in when he-
He passed out, hitting his head on the sink on his way down.